Start with what the tool is actually for
Email marketing software covers a wide shelf, so the first job is to sort out what each product is built to do. A mail sender helps you send campaigns and manage a list. A funnel builder helps you build the pages that lead into those campaigns. A mobile service has its own job entirely.
Mailjet and Postmark both sit in the sending category, and both list small businesses as their audience, with Mailjet also aimed at beginners. Postmark is the simpler fit if you only need to send, and you can see how it holds up in the Postmark review.
ClickFunnels is a different shape. It is aimed at beginners and small businesses, and it builds sites, stores and landing pages, so its email work sits inside a funnel rather than around a list. Read the ClickFunnels review before you assume it replaces a mail sender.
More examples make the point. ho. Mobile is a mobile service with data, minutes and messages in its package, not a campaign tool, and the ho. Mobile review sets out what you get. HubSpot covers beginners, small businesses and enterprise, which is a much wider spread than the rest of this group. The Email marketing software ranking puts the sending tools in one place so you can narrow the field quickly.
Read every price with its plan and billing term
A price on its own tells you very little. The number only means something once you know which plan it belongs to and what you are billed for. Start with the entry price, then look at the plan that matches the volume you expect to send.
ClickFunnels has no free plan. Paid access starts at $97, and the e-commerce plan is priced at $97. There is a trial of 14 days, which gives you time to judge the builder before you commit.
Mailjet prices by contact volume. Its lower tier is $9 and its larger tier is $19, so the jump between tiers is the number to check against your own growth. Postmark sits close by at $15 for the same larger tier, which makes the two easy to place side by side.
ho. Mobile uses a different model again. Introductory pricing runs €6.95 to €12.95, and standard packages start at €6.95, with a per user figure of €6.95.
A habit pays off here. Write down the entry price, the tier you expect to use, and the promotion expiry for each product before you compare anything else. Promotional rates are useful for a trial but they are not your long term cost, and the price you keep paying is the one that matters when you are deciding.
For a sense of the spread, the entry tier across the products we price runs €7.89 to €104.36, and the larger tier runs €11.40 to €140.31. A range this wide means the label alone will not narrow your list. Plan size and list size will.
Work out what you can test before you pay
The cheapest way to evaluate mail software is to send from it first, so look at the free allowance and the trial length before anything else. A permanent free tier is useful for a small list. A trial is better when you need the paid features to judge them.
HubSpot has a free plan, so you can start with nothing spent and move up when the tools you need arrive. Postmark's free allowance is 100 emails/month free, which is a small monthly allowance with no spend. Mailjet's free allowance is 6,000 emails/month, 1,000 contacts, 200 emails per day, and the daily send cap matters as much as the monthly total if your campaigns go out on a fixed day.
ClickFunnels offers no free plan, so a trial is the only way in, and it is 14 days long. ho. Mobile also has no free plan. Where there is no free tier, set a calendar reminder at the start of the trial and judge the features you came for while you still have access.
Check the limits and quotas, not just the headline price
Prices are easy to compare and limits are easy to miss, yet limits decide whether a product still works for you later on. A cheap entry tier with a low daily cap can cost you more once you have to split a campaign or add a second send.
For Mailjet, the free allowance of 6,000 emails/month, 1,000 contacts, 200 emails per day shows the shape of the limits clearly: a monthly send total, a contact count and a daily send ceiling, each of which can bind before the others. Postmark's 100 emails/month free is a single monthly allowance, so its ceiling is easier to predict and harder to reach quickly.
Quotas are not always about email. ho. Mobile's package includes 150 GB, unlimited minutes, 200 SMS, which is the clearest reminder to read the limits in the units your product actually uses. If you are picking a mail tool, the equivalents to check are monthly sends, daily sends, contacts, attachment size and the number of lists or seats you are allowed.
A good test is to write your realistic monthly send volume and your list growth on paper, then check each product's limits against both numbers. Any product where one of those figures is close to its cap is a product you will be negotiating with later.
Compare the features you will use and the support you will get
Feature lists are usually long and rarely relevant, so filter them down to the work you repeat every month. For a funnel tool the build types are the deciding detail, and ClickFunnels covers site, store and landing, which is a different feature set from templates and automations.
Support is a feature too, and the channels differ more than the marketing suggests. ClickFunnels offers email, chat and help centre. Postmark offers email, chat and phone, and phone support is listed there. Mailjet offers help centre only. ho. Mobile offers phone, help centre and community.
Small details change the daily experience. ClickFunnels applies a transaction fee of 0%, so nothing is taken on top of a sale. ho. Mobile is available on ios, so check that the device you use is covered before you commit to a longer term.
Look at the company behind the product
Reliability is hard to test from the outside, so use what the vendor publishes about itself. Age, headquarters and the legal entity behind the brand tell you whether you are dealing with a long standing business or a recent one, and which company you are actually contracting with.
HubSpot was founded in 2006, making it the oldest company in this group, while ClickFunnels dates from 2013 and ho. Mobile from 2018. An older company is not automatically the safer choice, but a long track record is worth something when your sending reputation and your list both depend on one provider.
The legal entity is the detail most buyers never look at. ClickFunnels trades as Etison LLC d/b/a ClickFunnels, Postmark as AC PM, LLC and ho. Mobile as Fastweb S.p.A.. Note the address of each headquarters as well: ClickFunnels is based in the US, Postmark in the US and ho. Mobile in the IT, which tells you which data rules and which support hours you can expect.
The HubSpot review, the Mailjet review and the other reviews on this site cover how each product behaves in daily use, and the ranking at Email marketing software is the quickest way to see which of these vendors holds up across more than one category.
Turn your comparison into a shortlist
Write your findings down in the same order for every product and the decision gets much easier. Use the same set of rows: what the product is for, the plan you would buy, the limits at that plan, the features you need and the company behind it.
Then cut. Drop anything where the free tier or trial cannot show you the feature you came for, and drop anything where a limit sits close to your expected volume. What survives is a shortlist you can actually run a campaign on, and the HubSpot review and the ranking at Email marketing software are good places to pressure test the names that remain.
Finally, decide in advance what would change your mind. A better entry price, a higher daily send cap or a trial long enough to run a real campaign are all reasonable reasons to look again. Deciding the trigger first keeps you from switching on a bad week rather than on the numbers.